CALGARY—There is no sign of drugs in a secretly recorded video that involves Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi. And it is not being shopped for $200,000 by shadowy figures.

But despite that, this video has garnered a lot of attention in Calgary because it involves money and some very powerful people: Nenshi, former Reform party leader Preston Manning and Cal Wenzel, one of the city’s most prominent and prosperous homebuilders.

The story begins last November when Wenzel addressed a closed meeting of 150 people from the development industry about how they can thwart Nenshi’s plans for the city by backing candidates in the upcoming municipal elections who will “swing our way.”

Someone in the crowd used a cellphone to record his remarks and then in April turned the recording over to the local Global television station, which broadcast excerpts and then posted the entire 18-minute video on its website.

Wenzel, founder of Shane Homes, is extremely forthright in the video about his distaste for Nenshi and what he perceives as his anti-development stance, especially in the sprawling suburbs.

But Wenzel also concedes that since there is no one waiting in the wings who has even a faint hope of beating Nenshi in the October elections the developers need another strategy if they are to realize their agenda.

Because the mayor has only one vote on city council out of a total of 15, the developers need to get eight city councillors on board, Wenzel told the meeting. He then goes on to name current councillors and candidates for city council who deserve financial support from developers.

This is where Preston Manning comes in.

Wenzel clearly sees Manning and the Manning Centre for Building Democracy as sympathetic to his plan. He refers to the centre’s Municipal Governance Project, which among other things teaches prospective candidates how to run effective municipal election campaigns.

And toward the end of the video Wenzel says: “In order to bring Preston Manning on board, 11 of us have put $100,000-$1.1 million — so it’s not like we haven’t put up our money . . .”

After Wenzel finishes speaking, someone else at the meeting, who is not seen on the video, talks about how the money the developers contributed to the Manning Centre has ensured that Dimitri Pantazopoulos of the Manning Centre “has come on full-time on behalf of this group.”

When the video was released, Manning was in Australia and did not respond to questions from the news media about the Manning Centre’s role in Wenzel’s plan to neuter Nenshi.

The former federal leader of the opposition finally addressed his role in the affair last Friday, more than a month after the video was released. He told CBC that the Manning Centre’s municipal project is not meant to shift the political slant of city council. He also said all the donations from the developers are above board and accounted for in his centre’s operations.

Nenshi doesn’t buy Manning’s explanation and says it is clear from the video that the Manning Centre is in league with developers who want to control city council for their own benefit.

Developers certainly have a right to get involved in municipal elections by financially supporting candidates as long as they follow the rules and the donations are on the public record. However, there is evidence in the video that some developers use their staff, vehicles and other resources to help out their favourite candidates — unrecorded donations that exceed the cap on financial donations.

Nenshi certainly has a right to take on developers if he thinks they are not acting in the city’s best interests. He’s had a testy relationship with them for quite a while.

That’s all part of municipal politics and likely will be for a long time.

But it’s the role of Preston Manning and the Manning Centre that raises the most questions. How beholden is the Manning Centre, which bills itself as “building democracy,” to the developers and their anti-Nenshi campaign? And is it fitting for an organization that promotes democracy to be consorting with developers who appear to flout campaign fundraising rules? If the Manning Centre believes Nenshi’s vision is detrimental to the future of Calgary, why doesn’t it just come out and say so instead of pretending to be non-partisan?

The optics are not good and so far Manning hasn’t really clarified the centre’s relationship with the developers’ group.

No doubt he wishes those pesky cellphone cameras had never been invented.

Gillian Steward is a Calgary writer and journalist, and former managing editor of the Calgary Herald. Her column appears every other week. gsteward@telus.net

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